


Keep the Home Fires Burning

by Nottherealdean



Series: Dean!clones [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Child Abuse, M/M, Multi, Parental Deaths, Parentification, Past Child Abuse, Self-cest, Talking about Committing Violence, dean!clones, puppet!deans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 21:19:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1702880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nottherealdean/pseuds/Nottherealdean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three of the Dean!clones in Purgatory, struggling with their feelings about John and how he raised them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep the Home Fires Burning

**Author's Note:**

> Posted on tumblr on Feb. 25, 2014.

"Dad fucked up."  
Dean froze. “What did you say?”  
“He fucked up. He was a shitty father.” The Dean who was speaking snapped a branch in half with unnecessary force and chucked both pieces into their fire.  
  
“He did the best he could, okay?” said the Dean who was trying to bind a flake of obsidian back onto its axe haft. “He had a shitty life and that’s not his fault, so—”  
“So he gets to make shitty choices? He left us alone with a gun and a five year old in a motel while he hunted a child-killer feeding in the same town. Who even does that to their kids?” demanded fire-tending Dean.  
“He was hunting it so more kids didn’t die! And we should have been there, we should have been able to handle it.” Axe-mending Dean had set both obsidian and bone haft on the damp earth to glare at fire-Dean.  
“No, where we should have been is at Pastor Jim’s. He should have left us there from the start, and he only didn’t because—”  
“The man’s dead, leave him be.” Axe-Dean’s voice was starting to rise.  
“— he was acting like we were Mom!” fire-Dean finished, his own voice loud, and furious. “He couldn’t handle it without her and he tried to make  _us_  fill the hole.”  
“You need to shut your fucking mouth.”  
“But he couldn’t even do that right! He didn’t want the real Mom, he wanted his bullshit image of her. Taking care of Sammy while he was off at work, ready with the beer and the bandages to make it all better when he came home beat bloody, yes-sir no-sir what-do-you-need-from-me-now-sir?” Fire-Dean was on his feet now, yelling at axe-Dean. “Mom wouldn’t have taken it, she would have ditched his ass—”  
Axe-Dean stood. “So help me, if you do not shut the hell up right now—”  
“—the second he tried to make her some fantasy army wife who did nothing but play support to his goddamn mission and disappeared into the background when he didn’t need her!” They had drawn closer together as the fight escalated, and now were separated only by the heat of the fire burning between them.   
“Oh, don’t you dare—” axe-Dean started, the fine hairs on the back of his hand beginning to singe from the heat as he pointed at fire-Dean.  
“Well it looks like  _I’m_  interrupting,” said Dean, walking out of the trees into the little clearing. He let the butt of the log he had been carrying braced over his shoulder thump down onto the ground. “Is it Kirk vs. Spock again, or spreading the peanut butter before the jelly?” He grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes and it was clear he’d heard some of the argument while bringing back the fire wood.  
“He’s so deep in denial about what an asshole Dad was he’s ruling Egypt.”  
“Well  _he’s_  in denial about what my fist is—”  
Dean gave his end of the log a shove, tipping it over into the fire. Orange sparks shot upwards in a blazing flurry.  
“God knows I love Dad,” log-Dean said, “But I fucking hate the things he did to you two. I could kill him for that.” He frowned at the dirt and fragments of lichen clinging to his hands, then leaned forward to wipe it off on the other Deans’ shoulders. One grimy handprint on each of them, right and left.  
There was a still moment while the fire wavered on the brink: set the log alight and burn hotter or be quenched by the damp mass of it. The arguing Deans balanced on the same knife edge.   
The bark hissed and steamed, and slowly began to char. Fire-Dean and axe-Dean fell in the other direction, the fight crushed and destabilized under the new weight. They let the dirt on their clothes stay, each mark a claim and a promise that neither Dean brushed himself clean of.  
“Everything he did to us he did to you,” fire-Dean reminded him, his anger seeping away.  
“Oh come on, you wouldn’t,” said axe-Dean, “Not for—”  
“I think I could. I really, really do.”  
“If you were going to kill him for the things he did, you would’ve done it back when he was alive and, you know, actually  _doing_  them, and guess what?” Axe-Dean shrugged. “You didn’t.  _We_  didn’t.”  
“That’s the thing though,” log-Dean said, watching the lichen on the log curl and blacken. “Back then it was  _me_. He was doing it to me. I still wouldn’t raise my hand against him for that. But for you—” He stopped, and wet his lips. “Seeing how much he fucked you over—” Log-Dean shook his head with an angry, painful laugh. “I’d shoot him in the face. I would.” There was a hitch in his voice that he tried to swallow down.  
The fire snapped and crackled in the aching silence, and the air seemed suddenly dark from the creeping twilight.  
“I love you too,” said fire-Dean. “You too, Cleopatra,” he added, looking across at axe-Dean.  
“Fuck,” said axe-Dean. “Fuck, now I got to say it? Hell.” He shifted. “Okay, uh, you’re my Mark Antony and Julius Caesar, okay? Let’s just, cross the Rubicon or whatever.”

In the middle of the night, when the fire had settled into a heap of glowing embers and the stars were brilliant overhead, Dean said, “If Dad was— if he wasn’t—” Then softer, “We lost Mom. Losing Dad too… I don’t know if I can do it. If he wasn’t— it would mean that there was no one, that— that—”  
“That we were dealing with it all alone ‘cause there was nobody taking care of us. Because Mom was dead and couldn’t and Dad was there and… couldn’t either, I guess.”  
“We’ve got somebody now though. I mean, there’s that. And I, at least, am gonna care-take  _the shit_  outta you two.”

 

 


End file.
